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Iran's nuclear progress to industrial-scale enrichment
By Stuart Williams
AFP
TEHRAN
Petroleumworld.com 04 10 07
In the latest development in a controversial nuclear drive which dates back to before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran announced on Monday it is now producing enriched uranium on an industrial scale.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave no figures over how many centrifuges Iran had installed at the Natanz plant to enrich uranium, a process that can produce nuclear fuel but in highly extended form can also make the fissile core for an atomic bomb.
Atomic energy organisation chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said Iran had now started mass production of the centrifuges, which are set up in long cascades to enrich the uranium from the gas feedstock.
The Islamic republic insists that its nuclear drive is solely aimed at supplying energy for a growing population, but the United States has accused the oil-rich country of using the drive as cover for weapons ambitions.
Herewith is an overview of Iran's progress at its main nuclear sites:
MINING
-- Iran has three mines for extracting uranium ore, in Saghand and Anarak in the centre as well as Gchin in the south, according to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its reserves are not known but are believed to be insufficient for an industrial-scale nuclear programme.
CONVERSION
-- Raw mined uranium is then transformed into "yellowcake" and transferred to a Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) protected by a battery of anti-aircraft guns on the edge of Isfahan, the ancient capital of Persia.
-- The mined uranium is transformed into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) and then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feed gas for the actual process of enrichment.
-- Work at the vast facility had been suspended up until August 2005 as Iran pursued talks with the European Union over its nuclear programme, but Tehran then resumed the process in defiance of the Europeans.
-- 270 tons of UF6 have now been produced at the plant, Iran announced on Monday.
ENRICHMENT
-- Iran announced the same day that it is now producing fuel on an industrial scale.
-- The underground Natanz facility is designed to host cascades of thousands of centrifuges. UF6 gas is fed into the centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich the uranium.
-- Natanz also has two cascades of 164 centrifuges at an overground test plant.
-- Iran is also trying to develop advanced P2 centrifuges -- devices that are capable of making weapons-grade uranium more efficiently than the P1 technology currently in use.-- The facility is particularly controversial: Iran only declared it to the IAEA after the site was exposed in 2002 by an exiled opposition group.
POWER PLANT
-- The construction of Iran's atomic power plant near the southern port city of Bushehr with Russian help has been hit by a string of delays. It is due to go online this year but each side has accused the other of financing problems.
-- The project was first launched by the late shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in the 1970s. It was stalled due to the 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
-- In the early 1990s Iran began to search for aid to revive the project. In 1995, it found help from Russia, which has also agreed to fuel the plant, with the supply deal committing Iran to returning any spent material.
HEAVY WATER REACTOR
-- Iran has been building the Arak heavy water research reactor on the outskirts of the village of Khondab. Heavy water reactors do not need enriched uranium fuel in order to function.
-- Ahmadinejad in August 2006 inaugurated a heavy water production plant to supply heavy water to be used as coolant and moderator for the 40 megawatt research reactor due for completion by 2009.-- The IAEA is concerned about the proliferation risk, as the reactor could produce 8-10 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of plutonium a year, enough to make at least one nuclear bomb.
AFP 09 1531 GMT 04 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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